Singapore stocks open higher on Thursday; STI up 0.5%

SINGAPORE stocks opened higher on Thursday, with the Straits Times Index gaining 17.25 points, or 0.5 per cent to 3,575.07 as at 9.16am.

This came after US stocks ended mostly higher overnight on the back of largely upbeat corporate earnings reports and a surge in petroleum-linked equities.

On the Singapore bourse, gainers outnumbered losers 104 to 76, after about 115.5 million shares worth S$217.1 million changed hands.

The most actively traded counter by volume was Ezion, which fell 3.4 per cent or 0.6 Singapore cent to S$0.17 with 20 million shares traded.

Other active index stocks included UOB which was up by 1.7 per cent, or 51 Singapore cents to S$29.70, and DBS which was up by 0.9 per cent, or 25 Singapore cents to S$29.61.